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didn’t seem worried at all about pulling one of their bottles. But I did, my eyes following every step involved in producing a drink, literally “drinking it in” so that I would know what I was doing better the next time it happened.
    Christian reached into the chiller and pulled out a white wine, opened it and poured us two big goblets.
    We sat on the couch downing the wine, the silence between us like ice sheets on the side of a roof waiting to fall with a crash, the eerie quiet promising something risky. The warm, familiar buzz spread to my toes and I knew that soon we’d be talking again. I hoped for it.
    “Isn’t that better?” he asked, putting his goblet down on the table without a coaster.
    “Yes, much better. Thank you.” Then Christian was on top of me again, and we resumed making out like nothing had ever happened, except that wine played an integral role in our ability to connect.
    Jenna was worried that I drank too much. I cited it as a teenage rite of passage. That everyone drank cause it was fun, and I had to find my limits in life. Limits like how much to drink. How far to go with Christian. Whether I would let Hillman make one more smart-ass remark before I hit him over the head with a stiletto.
    Sitting in my room with Jenna, three beers down to her one, I felt a sort of triumph. I won the drinking contest, even though there was none. Proud that I needed more to get me loaded than she did, I opened a fourth can that, to my surprise, she grabbed from me in mid-swig, the goodness of barley and hops spilling out of my mouth.
    “Hey!”
    “Hey, slow down. You’re scaring me.”
    “Better give me that back or you’ll know what scary really is,” I said, swiping for my beer. Jenna held it over her head. I would need a stepstool to get it.
    “Look,” she said, keeping the beer high. “You need to calm down about this drinking. You’ve been going out with Christian for just a few weeks and you’re already a lush.”
    I stopped reaching for the beer and crumpled back down on the floor, my mouth open. My breath came and went from my lips.
    “I just really enjoy it, okay? Don’t make decisions for me, Jenna.”
    “I’m worried about you, Beck, that’s all.” She lowered the can, which I grasped and brought to my mouth. Any more of a delay and my buzz would have gone away.
    Later, after Jenna had gone home — after only another half beer — I sat on my bed thinking about what she’d said, and trying to figure out the real reason I liked to drink. First, it was fun, like when you’re a kid and you spin around in an office chair until you can’t stand up. It also drained tension from my body better than sleep or taking a walk. And it made me laugh more. Even though these reasons were good, they didn’t compare to the way drinking made me feel in love, like I was with Christian.
    It brought us together as a couple, and made us equals with every open lid. There was a moment when I could pretend he was watching me drink, clapping at me as I downed this bottle or that one, stolen from my parents. Tonight I had taken it a step further by pimping the booze myself. Self-sufficient drinking. Christian would be proud.

Chapter 6
     
     
     
     
     
    Alo ne for the first time that night, I tried to regain movement. I’d had a lot to drink before, but this was different, like someone had given me something. I could move my head around and slowly, gratefully, my hand came up to my face, slapping against it f or a moment before flopping down on the velvet couch. At least there was movement, but I needed more.
    ≈
    The night we had sex, Christian had threatened to break up with me. We’d gone to the movies, had an argument about whether we were going to do it or not, and then came home to the empty Rusch house, where ticking clocks and windchimes talked to each othe r in the dark. He’d grabbed a bottle of wine and some cups, and we went upstairs to his bedroom.
    Christian’s room was like the